Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Yoichi Single Cask 1987/2005

"Yoichi 1987/2005 (49%, OB, Peated, cask #254816, Warehouse #3) [Nonjatta: Not to be confused with the 1987 single cask bottled in 2004]Colour: Pale gold.Nose: Starts very meaty, on lovage and ham with notes of veal cooked in butter, even a tad acetic (wine vinegar). A lot of bacon too (the ferry to Islay at 8 in the morning – hard for continental stomachs!) The good news is that all this gets cleaner and purer after a few minutes, much more on crystal-clean peat, lemon juice and white pepper with faint whiffs of incense and sandalwood. Very, very discreet notes of horse manure. Very nice nose but nothing too wild here, even if it gets both fruitier and cheesier after a good twenty minutes.Mouth: A very compact attack, all focused on Seville oranges and peat. More citrus fruits after that (slight fizziness) and more herbs, with hints of coriander and parsley. Good development on crystallised ginger and Szechuan pepper, with a return on crystallised oranges. Very balanced peat.Finish: Long, half-round, half-wild, with added notes of chewed cigar.Comments: Maybe not total magic but very, very good. Perfect balance peat/wood that create a most pleasant spiciness. SGP:455 - 87 points." (Serge`s scoring system is explained on this page.)

3 comments:

Serge, your description of the Yoichi was laughable to say the least. the nose, lovage and ham with notes of veal cooked in butter. Was the veal breaded and rolled in egg first? and the mouth, crystallized ginger and szechuan pepper, and back to crystallized orange. What planet are you from pal. where the hell do you find those crystallized products.and the finish being half round and half wild notes of chewed cigar, hell you've been living in cuba to long buddy. but you sure do talk a load of bullshit, if i do say so myself.you sound like you'd be a better food critic than someone who (i feel) can describe what their tasting in the malts. Kind of puts me off trying another jap malt. wm

Will, I would advise you not to open the third gallon bottle of White Lightning cider before commenting. It makes you appear ignorant and uncivil.On Nonjatta, we try not to attack other people's experiences. Tasting any drink is necessarily a subjective experience and communicating that experience requires some trust that the audience are actually going to be listening and not sneering. Personally, I find it hard to put the complex tastes of whiskies into readable prose but I don't resort to abuse just because my palate-brain connection is a bit Neanderthal. When I have tasted the same whiskies Serge has reviewed I have usually found some of the tastes perfectly expressed somewhere in his review and have been uncomfortably aware that I would have been reduced to something like "its quite sweet", "a bit salty", like the hundreds of other notes I have written.Will (or should I say Troll?), before you trouble us again, sober up and know that Serge has written more whisky notes than you have had Thunderbird puke smelling mornings.

Hi Will,LOL! Good comments! Seriously, I know that it’s tough to come up with descriptors that everybody understands/approves because we all have different backgrounds, especially regarding analogies with food, and I won’t use industry standards because that would be too boring to me and most probably to the readers. I’m only doing this for fun.The veal thing is rather significant to me because there are various kinds of meatiness that one can find in whisky. I won’t list them all but I feel veal cooked in butter is very different from, say beef stock or bacon or cured ham and so on… Same with lovage, that can be close to soy sauce or even oyster sauce ‘though it’s a plant.As for pepper, well, I used to just write ‘pepper’ before my good friend Martine made me nose a good dozen different kinds of pepper. Wildly different. Now, agreed, Szechuan pepper isn’t exactly pepper anyway...Don’t you get crystallised fruits where you live? You may google that and you’ll find many and not only on Mars or Jupiter ;-)And did you try this particular Yoichi yourself? I’d love to read your own notes. Me, a food critic? Now, that’s an idea ;-)!Take care and have fun,Serge

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